


Mercury

by trashsshi



Category: EXO (Band), NCT (Band), SuperM (Korea Band)
Genre: Angst, Domestic Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sickfic, baekhyun has a cat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:28:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23259184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashsshi/pseuds/trashsshi
Summary: A neighbourly cat, followed by its owner, a neighbourly neighbour, gently gatecrash Taeyong's life until he is not so much sickly and sad as loved and cared for.
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Lee Taeyong
Comments: 33
Kudos: 144





	Mercury

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Owlvis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owlvis/gifts).



> for Noah ╰(◡‿◡✿╰) i hail thee for being so patient and supportive and also a lovely twitter friend? i always look forward to our conversations, even if my presence on twitter is spotty at best!
> 
> this is for you, although i did not stick to your prompt very well- at least, not in terms of the cause of Taeyong's pain and illness. there is a surgery, but it is future to the timeline of the fic; the fic is about what leads up to the surgery. i guess. in a manner of speaking. (◕︿◕✿) i've followed your prompt in other aspects though, and this is still very much a Taeyong struggling with health issues and being cared for by the nosy neighbourly cat-and-Baekhyun duo. it's not exactly what you asked for but!! it's ALMOST exactly what you asked for ★~(◠︿◕✿)

Hospitals are unpleasant places to be.

Taeyong has always thought so. The smell of swabs. The waiting, the filling of forms, the way his personal space just doesn’t matter when doctors prod him and the nurses manhandle him as though he’s a baby. The ceiling is too bright, every time he wakes up on a hospital bed. The disinfectant stings his nostrils. A palpable undercurrent is the misery of people more desperate than he is. 

“Lee Taeyong?”

Taeyong shuffles to the counter. The secretary treats him as though it is his first visit even though he has had to come to the hospital several times this week- both planned and unplanned visits. She checks his forms and adds them to his file, handing it to him, then points down the corridor on the left. “Room eleven. It’s at the end.”

Taeyong thanks her and walks along the corridor with the file hugged to his chest. He stares at the nameplate on the door for a few bracing moments before he knocks. He hears ‘enter’ and obeys, but he turns his back on Dr. Han to shut the door carefully because he’s not ready to face her yet.

“I have your appointment here- Lee Taeyong?” says Dr. Han. Taeyong slowly turns to face her and nods shyly.

Dr. Han smiles. “Can I see your file, please?”

Taeyong goes up to place it on her desk, then sits in the patient’s chair. 

Dr. Han flips through the file, then closes it, placing her elbows on the table with her fingers interlocked. It is somehow such a doctor-like gesture that Taeyong badly wants to burst into nervous giggles.

“I see you’ve been admitted several times, Taeyong. You’ve gone through several testing procedures, too.”

Taeyong says in a small voice, “Yes.”

“Tell me about the symptoms you’ve been experiencing.”

Taeyong swallows, then flicks his eyes up to hers before focusing on her chin again. “I have...nosebleeds? I thought I was just tired, but.”

“Go on.”

“And my nose keeps running and I feel like I’m not able to breathe properly. It’s not a cold, though… I think? Because even my chest feels weird, and I’ve taken cold medicine but nothing changed…”

Dr. Han rested her chin on their interlocked fingers. “Your chest feels weird? But you don’t have a cough?”

“I do… I cough up blood sometimes.” Taeyong shifts to staring down at his hands, fiddling nervously in his lap. “And my nose hurts.”

“Your nose hurts… is it after a nosebleed? After it’s been running a long time?”

Taeyong thinks for a moment and says, “All the time.”

“The inside of your nose? That can get abraded, especially if you forcefully exhale phlegm to clean it out.”

“Not the inside… my whole nose hurts.”

Dr. Han is quiet for what feels like the longest time. Taeyong is anxious, trying to poke a hole in his sweater, to retract his hands into the sleeves and bunch up the excess sleeve. He grips the bunches for comfort, for a sense of grounding himself. He knew it- whatever is ailing him, it doesn’t make any sense, and the doctor will probably call him a hypochondriac and send him off with placebo pills.

Finally, Dr. Han speaks. Taeyong doesn’t look up from his sweater bunches. “I won’t say you have me flummoxed, but it could be the symptoms of several conditions you’re experiencing at once. The alternative, though… it’s pretty rare.”

“What is the alternative?” says Taeyong, dreading the answer.

“As I said, it’s pretty rare. But we’ll still have you tested for it.” Dr. Han smiled. “Don’t worry. Oh- do you get fevers or feel fatigued often?”

Taeyong blinks. “Yes.”

“Could you elaborate?”

“Uh. Yes to both.”

“How often?”

“Fevers… maybe once a month? They don’t choose the same time every month or anything. And they skip around a lot.”

“And fatigue?”

Taeyong pushes a sweater bunch around on his lap. He once collapsed on the street from fever and fatigue, and woke up in a hospital bed later. He’d just been trying to buy some rice.

“I feel tired all the time.” 

Dr. Han says with false merriment, “Don’t we all?” and Taeyong considers telling her to drop trying to wear a doctor’s cheer. It’s a facade nobody trusts.

~

Taeyong takes the thermometer out of his mouth and squints at the silver strand. It shows the same reading it did the first time he checked his temperature. He doesn’t have a fever this time.

But he aches all over. He climbs into bed, sprawling out like a starfish, and closes his eyes. He wishes he could fall asleep so he doesn’t have to feel the pain. But the pain keeps him from falling asleep, instead.

He doesn’t have the energy to get up again. To take a painkiller he’ll have to eat something first, and he doesn’t have the energy to get up, leave alone eat. His fingers and toes are numb. It’s the strangest feeling. He wriggles them, and opens his eyes. He’s too tired to check if his toes are wriggling, for that would involve lifting his head. He doesn’t turn his head, but he swivels his eyes to the corners to check whether his fingers are moving. Thankfully they are, even if he can’t feel them doing so.

Taeyong shuts his eyes and wishes he could sleep, even if he knows it’s no use.

For a while, his pain is uninterrupted. But since it isn’t a spasming sort of pain, but a constant ache, Taeyong thinks he’ll get used to it and drop off eventually, sort of how fishmongers get used to the stench of fish. But then the scratching starts. And the meowing.

Taeyong cannot bring himself to go answer the door to a cat. It’s obviously got the wrong house. But then he feels his nose running again. It’s when he opens his eyes to squint at the tip of his own nose that he finds out it’s blood.

He has to sit up then, grab a bunch of kleenex from the top of the cabinet. He answers the door with a wad of kleenex plugging his nosebleed.

The cat is a piebald. “Wrong house, kitty,” says Taeyong thickly. He tips his head back to stem the nosebleed and, before he can shut the door, the cat darts between his legs and enters his apartment.

Taeyong wants to collapse and bang his head on the doorpost. Well, maybe he doesn’t feel up to the last bit- Taeyong wants to collapse. He does not have to be dealing with a lost cat, on top of everything else. He can barely take care of himself.

Instead, he follows the cat into the apartment with a vague idea of catching it. Kitty- Taeyong can’t think of cat names right now and anyway it’s a bad idea to name a cat who isn’t really here for you in the first place, but only here because it’s lost- Kitty struts into the living room and paces around the couch. Taeyong picks it up and leaves it outside the door.

The moment he shuts the door, it starts scratching and meowing again. Exasperated, Taeyong opens the door a crack, and Kitty slips in through that.

Taeyong doesn’t want to try putting the cat out again. Because if he tries to close the door quickly on it, it might try slipping in and get hurt- he might shut the door with its tail jammed against the doorpost or something terrible like that.

Taeyong picks Kitty up in his arms. It doesn’t have a collar, but it looks too well cared for to be a stray. He wonders whether he should call on the other apartments on the floor, check if they’re missing a cat. But he doesn’t do well with strangers. Just imagining it is an ordeal. Taeyong tells himself that the cat may not even be from his floor. It could have come up or down the staircase. Or scaled walls to get here.

So Taeyong carries Kitty back into his apartment and sets it down. It goes back to pacing around the couch, almost as if it’s stalking it. Every few paces it turns and regards him with its feline eyes and meows.

Taeyong doesn’t know what it’s doing, but he’s ready to drop. So he drops on the couch.

Kitty jumps up onto the couch and, with a satisfied twitch of its whiskers, pads into his lap. It curls up, and Taeyong huffs, “You can’t just treat me like furniture.”

Kitty ignores him. 

After a while, Taeyong can’t sit up anymore, even though he’s flopped against the squashy couch. He takes Kitty up in his arms (it protests with a loud yowl) and stands, walking to his room.

He puts the extra pillow on the floor and places the cat on it, but it pads after him the moment he turns away.

“Stay on the pillow, good kitty,” mumbles Taeyong, but the cat scorns goodness and jumps up on the bed. Taeyong clambers into bed after it, pulls up the sheets and turns out the lights. He hasn’t had dinner, but he’s not hungry. He’s still in pain, but too weak to care.

He feels something warm and furry settle on his feet. His toes don’t feel numb anymore. The darkness is soothing for once.

~

Taeyong’s chest and sinuses are X-rayed. He is told that they’ll call him as soon as his X-ray results are out.

In the meanwhile, he has to grapple not only with his mysterious symptoms, but with the fact that he has taken a semester off college to figure out whatever is wrong with him, to try to get functioning normally again. It’s probably for the best that he has nobody to answer to, he thinks wryly.

He usually cooks something in the morning before his strength starts to give out over the course of the day. It’s always single-pot stuff, he knows he can’t cook anything elaborate in his present condition, even though he used to love cooking once.

Today, Taeyong makes a large hotpot stew, generously adding ingredients from the fridge- vegetables, eggs, meat. Once the pot comes to a boil and he simmers it, he hears the cat again.

He sighs and lets it in. “Did you get attracted by the smell of my cooking? Do cats even like hotpot?” Taeyong smiles faintly. “I’m supposed to be a great cook. My grandmother loved anything I made.” Taeyong returns to the kitchen, Kitty at his heels.

Taeyong switches off the stove and ladles some of the stew into a shallow dish, setting it on the floor for Kitty. It rubs against his legs, looks at the dish, then looks up at him.

“What?” says Taeyong. “Even if cats don’t like hotpots, I’m supposed to be a great cook. You’ll regret not trying it.”

Kitty looks at the huge pot still sitting on the stove, then down at the dish, then back up at Taeyong.

“Hey, that’s my breakfast, lunch _and_ dinner. That’s all I make. I can’t give you a larger serving, I’m not even your owner.” Kitty swishes its tail. “It's a hotpot when I have my fridge stocked and army stew when I’m running out of ingredients,” muses Taeyong. He opens the fridge again, but doesn’t find anything that looks like cat food. No tinned fish or anything. 

“Wait, if I feed you you’ll probably keep coming here to bother me,” says Taeyong, having second thoughts. He shuts the fridge and picks up the dish containing the hotpot sample taster. Kitty yowls, craning its head at the dish. Taeyong’s hand hesitates, but he pours it back into the hotpot and ladles out some for himself into a bowl. He sits down against the kitchen cabinets and eats his breakfast, the cat watching him reproachfully.

~

Taeyong has a handkerchief tied over the lower part of his face so that his nose runs onto it. He needs to buy another box of tissues. He also needs to do laundry. He wonders how merely surviving could be so difficult.

He takes the thermometer out of his mouth and finds he has a fever. It figures, thinks Taeyong, because he feels like shit.

He knows he needs to go pop a paracetamol, but he doesn’t think he can get moving just yet. His head is killing him and his limbs feel like jelly.

The cat yowls from the kitchen. Taeyong screws his eyes shut tighter. He supposes Kitty is hungry, or still bristling about breakfast.

It might have been after five minutes or after ten, but Kitty keeps up its incessant yowling and perhaps it jogs Taeyong to move before he otherwise would. He traipses to the kitchen, finds the medicine cabinet and takes a pill with some water. The moment he swallows he turns to the cat. “If you’re hungry, you need to go to your owner. I’ve nothing here that’s fit for you to eat.”

But Kitty isn’t yowling anymore. It’s looking at the hotpot again, which is still sitting on the stove.

“You didn’t have any when I offered you some,” complains Taeyong. Well, it’s lunchtime anyway, he figures. He takes out a generous portion for himself, and reluctantly takes some out for the cat. But when he puts it in front of the cat, it walks away from its share.

“Fine,” huffs Taeyong, and finishes his own lunch.

The cat leaves soon after- stands in by the front door and yowls until Taeyong lets it out. It doesn’t visit him again that day. Taeyong goes back to bed and doesn’t get up, not even for dinner.

~

The next day, he gets a call that his X-ray results are out. He books an appointment immediately.

“What’s wrong with me?” Taeyong asks Dr. Han, before even greeting him.

“You’ve got abnormal cellular formations,” says Dr. Han, looking at the X-rays.

“It’s not cancer?” Taeyong panics.

“No! No, cancer cells look quite different from this. Don’t worry. Also don’t overthink, and don’t self-diagnose!”

“Okay,” says Taeyong glumly, bracing himself for a hypochondria accusation. But it doesn’t come.

“We’re going to have to do a lung biopsy,” says Dr. Han. “So we’ll first do a CT scan-”

“What? Why?”

“If I tell you what your suspected condition is, are you going to go research it on your own?”

Taeyong nods. 

“Well, you can do that once we’ve confirmed your condition. No point getting worked up before we know anything for sure, is there?”

Taeyong pauses, nods again.

“Good,” says Dr. Han, as though that settles it. It really doesn’t- Taeyong knows they’re still in the process of running tests, but the tests are unnerving procedures in themselves. Not for the first time, Taeyong wishes he had someone who would sit in the doctor’s waiting room with him, someone to hold his hand and tell him it’ll be okay.

~

Taeyong returns from the hospital to find Kitty sitting on the doormat outside his front door. It isn’t meowing and there are no fresh scratches on the door. It seems to have known he wasn’t at home. Taeyong gathers it up into his arms and opens the door. He settles on the couch, stroking it absentmindedly and thinking about the upcoming medical tests.

When Kitty purrs, Taeyong says, “Since you’re finally initiating conversation- they’re gonna do a CT scan. Which I’m okay with. And a lung biopsy. Which I’m honestly not looking forward to.”

A meow in reply. Taeyong says, “Yeah. Since I have to do it, I really shouldn’t dwell on it. Just go and get it over with.”

Kitty jumps off his lap and swishes into the kitchen. Taeyong sighs. “You just do whatever you want, huh.” It’s time for his dinner anyway, though, so he joins it in the kitchen, serving himself some of that morning’s stew. Like a ritual, he offers some to Kitty, and as always, Kitty refuses scornfully.

But it doesn’t leave. Taeyong might be the only one eating, but Kitty keeps him company.

~

“You don’t have to be nervous about this,” says Dr. Han. “The CT scan revealed the location of abnormal tissue in your sinuses and lungs. We’re simply going to take a sample of the abnormal tissue in your lungs and test it to figure out what’s ailing you.”

“Take it out?” Taeyong gulps.

“Oh, we’re not going to cut you open or anything. It’s a needle biopsy. We might have to make a tiny incision, but that’s all.”

Taeyong dawdles over the forms, but his biopsy has already been scheduled for that day, and before he feels ready, he is being injected with ‘intravenous sedation’. If this biopsy is really no big deal and practically like a bigger version of a vaccine like Dr. Han kept telling him, he can’t see why he has to be made groggy for it. He’s still suspicious when they have him lie on his front and mark the biopsy site on his back. Then they rub antiseptic on the spot, and then anaesthetic. By this time Taeyong is pretty sure this is going to be a hell of a lot more painful than a vaccine, or why the fuss?

His suspicions are confirmed when the doctor- Taeyong doesn’t know his name- brings out the biopsy needle. It is way bigger than Taeyong anticipated- several inches long, and wider than vaccine needles, hollow like a drinking straw.

Taeyong is glad he’s on his front so he won’t be able to see that needle being stabbed into his back. The doctor tells him they won’t need to make an incision in his case, but his relief is short-lived, for when they push the needle in (through his back into his lung cavity, the doctor tells him), Taeyong feels like his chest is going to burst with the pressure and pain. Whatever grogginess had begun spreading through him thanks to the sedation is dispersed now. The pain feels like something solid, expanding and pushing against his chest, and the urge to try to cough it out is overwhelming.

“Sit still,” the doctor keeps reminding him, “and avoid coughing.”

Taeyong wants to tell him how difficult it is to follow those instructions, but he’s afraid if he opens his mouth or moves his vocal cords he won’t be able to hold back coughing, so he grits his teeth and clenches his whole body to stay still.

Finally, the needle is removed, and the doctor clamps pads over the spot in his back where the needle had been, staunching the bleeding. They bandage him up and tell him he can go home. Once the results are out after testing the samples, they’ll call him, and he can come have his bandages removed, and talk to his doctor about the results.

Taeyong is ready to drop by the time he gets home, except he knows he won’t be able to sleep on his back for a few days. Under the bandaging he’s very sore. 

Kitty is waiting outside his door when he gets there. He picks it up and says, “It didn’t go so bad. I mean, it hurt, but not as much as I expected it to. But now I have to sleep on my front. I hate sleeping on my front. I already have trouble breathing and it’s so much harder to breathe when I’m sleeping on my front.” 

As Taeyong opens the door to his apartment and sets Kitty down, it occurs to him that he should probably get a catflap on his door. So he googles and makes some calls.

The cat flap fitters arrive to do their work that evening, and Taeyong moves from the kitchen to the dining table to eat, for the first time in a while, just so he can watch them work (the dining table is in the living room). Taeyong points towards them with his spoon. “How do you like the proceedings?”

Kitty doesn’t even glance their way, opting to watch him eat instead, between breaks from desultorily licking its paws. Taeyong sighs and cleans out his bowl of kimchi jjigae. The thought strikes him that he could perhaps find Kitty’s owner by looking for a cat flap on the door to their apartment, but he tells himself that they may not necessarily have installed one. Kitty was probably more well behaved with its owner, maybe it didn’t scratch at their door when they put it out; maybe it came straight here when they put it out. Taeyong endured a lot from it and that could well be why it liked to come here so frequently. 

Then again, he could just be making excuses to himself because the thought of meeting the owner makes him nervous. Now, it’s not just because of his social anxiety, but because he doesn’t know how this hypothetical owner would react to him taking his pet away regularly for such long periods of time. Even if technically it was the pet that flung itself at him and clung on until he grew begrudgingly attached to it. Taeyong thinks many pet owners wouldn’t want to share their pet, at least not without their knowledge and permission.

~

Taeyong gets a call that the results of his tissue sample analysis are out, and he needs to meet Dr. Han at the earliest. Dr. Han phones him personally shortly after and asks him if he’s scheduled an appointment. It is the first time Dr. Han contacted him directly, and Taeyong doesn’t know how to interpret that. He feels his anxiety spike. “What’s the matter with me- is it very serious?” he asks, his voice wobbly.

“Don’t worry about it, Taeyong. We need to discuss your results, and I will have to recommend you to the right specialist. It’s just best that you come to the hospital at the earliest. Now that we have your results, we know what’s ailing you and there’s no need to delay starting your treatment.”

Taeyong feels his heart sink. He will have to change doctors, just when his nervousness around Dr. Han has receded somewhat. “What is it? What’s my condition called?”

“I really think that’s something we should discuss over an appointment,” sighs Dr. Han. “How soon can you schedule one? I called because I’m willing to work around your schedule to attempt to clear out a space for you in mine. We could decide on a session quicker than we’d be able to through hospital channels.”

Taeyong bites down on his lip. Kitty plays with the pom-poms at the end of the drawstrings on his hoodie, and watching it swipe lightly at them with its splayed paws eases the knot in Taeyong’s chest. “Um. I don’t know if I’ll be able to come all the way to the hospital if i don’t feel better soon. I just, the aches and fatigue, it’s worse. I’m sure I’ll feel better in a few days- I’ll call the hospital then.”

“Call me directly,” Dr. Han practically commands. “I understand you’re too weak to move about a lot, but don’t you have anyone who could bring you?”

Taeyong screws his eyes shut to hold back the tears that threaten to spill. He pets Kitty slowly, calming himself down. Kitty’s eyes pinch shut in the cutest way. “I… don’t, actually.”

“Even if you don’t have family nearby, you could ask a neighbour to help you. You’re really going to need a support system, Taeyong.”

Silence. Since Dr. Han is waiting for a response, Taeyong takes a shaky breath and forces himself to speak. “I… I guess I can do that. Yeah.”

“Please. Once you’re in hospital your weakness and all your other symptoms won’t be a problem, we can sit you in a wheelchair if it comes to that. But you need to get here as soon as possible.”

“I’ll try,” says Taeyong. “Thank you, doctor.”

After Dr. Han hangs up, Taeyong can’t hold back his tears anymore. He sprawls against the arm of the couch and cries, trembling, almost spasming, on the edge of despair. Kitty yowls, alarmed, and jumps off his lap, darts through the cat flap.

Taeyong watches it go through the blur of his tears. It tips him over the edge. He has never felt so abandoned. It is a darker feeling than when his grandmother died. It drains him completely of light, more thoroughly than the darkness did then.

He huddles up, still shaking even though his tears have dried, and he wonders almost detachedly whether he’ll be able to move from here even to keep himself alive. Pain weighs down his limbs, and now darkness, leaden and oppressive, pulls him down like a rock to the ocean floor.

~

He has almost induced himself to pass out when he hears a knock on the front door. He cracks open an eye, in time to see Kitty enter through the catflap. The door creaks, cautiously opened by someone in an oversized sweatshirt. Kitty runs to the couch where Taeyong lies. It sits in front of the armrest, meowing expectantly at the stranger.

“Hey, are you okay?” An ASMR voice, husky and soothing.

“No,” says Taeyong softly, before he can think about it. The stranger crouches, and even though everything else is foggy, Taeyong is able to focus on the soft planes of his face, and then his delicate lips, his concerned eyes. There’s a mole above his lip and another on the side of his nose. Two more moles, one on each cheek. Taeyong’s heart aches while pinpointing his moles. It is a new, distracting pain.

“What do you need? How can I help?” says the stranger urgently.

“Can you take me to the hospital?” says Taeyong. “Apparently I can’t call an ambulance… because I won’t be allowed to tell them… which hospital to take me to… they’re just supposed to take me to the nearest one.” His voice is airy, bereft. He sounds as empty and weak as he feels, a shell suffocating under sand, and it almost makes him want to stop trying to talk.

“Of course, which hospital?”

Taeyong tells him the name, and he searches it up on his phone. Then he’s pocketing the phone, saying, “Is it okay if I touch you? To carry you to my car?”

“Mm,” mumbles Taeyong.

“My name is Baekhyun, by the way. And my cat’s name is Mel.” 

“Mm.” Taeyong thinks he can probably tell Baekhyun his name later, when he regains some energy. When he’s better. It’s nice to finally be formally introduced to Kitty, though. Mel. Tears prick Taeyong’s eyes, just because he knows its name now. It’s a dumb reason to cry.

Baekhyun slides one arm under his knees, the other against his shoulder blades. Taeyong collapses against him, and the next moment he’s in a princess lift. He can’t hold up his head so he lets it loll back, tears dripping cleanly off his face instead of sliding over his cheeks and making a mess. Baekhyun walks slowly and carefully, and Taeyong knows it’s so that his head doesn’t bounce on his neck too much. Taeyong knows, but he can’t thank him right now, or tell him his name.

“I’ve been wondering where Mel wanders off to,” says Baekhyun conversationally. “She evidently likes you more than I do. Ungrateful little grimalkin.” He chuckles an ASMR chuckle, and Taeyong finds his lips faintly lifting. Baekhyun keeps talking. Baekhyun talks a lot. Mostly about Mel, but he also says random things like, “I see the sky has the blues today, and so do you.” Taeyong, with his head lolling, is in the perfect position to see the sky- it is indeed very blue. By the time they’re in the parking lot Baekhyun’s grinning banter has polished off Taeyong’s tears.

Once Taeyong is in the backseat of Baekhyun’s car and Baekhyun is at the wheel, Taeyong mumbles, “Thanks.”

“No problem,” says Baekhyun. He has put a blanket over Taeyong, tucking it under his chin as though it’s a napkin. It’s a Marquisette baby swaddle blanket, the muslin smelling faintly of Baekhyun’s fabric conditioner, the same scent that Tayong had gotten a whiff of when Baekhyun held him against his chest while settling him into the seat. 

Taeyong closes his eyes, wishing his carsickness would abate. During the ride, Baekhyun says things like, “I took my uncle to the doctor’s once and we ended up in neurology when we were supposed to go to urology, but I won’t mess up this time, I swear.”

“I trust you,” murmurs Taeyong, and it is when he utters those words that he realises they’re true.

~

“I’m glad you could make it,” says Dr. Han. She hands him a slip of paper. “There’s your specialist. You can meet him right now, I told him to clear out his appointments for you if he has to.”

“I-is that okay?” Taeyong takes the slip with hesitant fingers and adds, “What’s the matter with me?”

“You’re going to have to ask your new specialist that,” says Dr. Han firmly.

Baekhyun wheels him out after Dr. Han hands over his file with all his forms and documents. Taeyong is tense, poking a hole through the weave of his sweater.

“It’s going to be okay now, if they’re sending you to a specialist then you’re going to know exactly what’s up, and you’re going to get specific treatment. This is a good thing. You’re going to get better!” Baekhyun keeps up his pep talk until they’re outside Dr. Lee’s door. Before Taeyong feels ready, Baekhyun has already knocked, and then Taeyong is being wheeled inside. 

Dr. Lee is grey-haired and imposing. With his wire-rimmed glasses, he reminds Taeyong of a headmaster. He takes Taeyong’s file without any preamble or small talk, consulting his own notes and murmuring ominously, “Ahhh. Yes. I’ve been expecting you.”

“Um. What were the results? Of my tissue sample.” Taeyong can’t look up yet while he speaks.

“You’ve got granulomatosis with polyangiitis,” says Dr. Lee.

“The fuck is that,” mutters Baekhyun behind him, and then louder, “Could you write it down for us, please?” Taeyong almost smiles.

Dr. Lee writes it down, but his spidery doctor’s handwriting is unreadable. “It’s GPA for short,” he adds.

“My college GPA was shot. This can’t be worse, right?” Baekhyun pats Taeyong’s shoulder. Taeyong almost giggles, not because it’s funny but because it’s lame. And sweet. That Baekhyun would try so hard to lift his spirits, some way or the other.

“So GPA affects your blood vessels,” says Dr. Lee. “It’s an autoimmune disease that irritates your blood vessels and causes them to swell up. So far, it has affected your sinuses and lungs, and that’s why you have the symptoms that you do. Also, I’m aware of how many times you’ve visited the hospital recently. It’s a rare disease; that’s why it took so long for us to conclude you had it. We had to rule out the more probable diseases first.”

“I understand,” says Taeyong. 

“Your treatment will consist of immunosuppressants, because the inflammation of your blood vessels is caused by your immune system acting up,” says Dr. Lee.

“Isn’t that dangerous?” says Baekhyun, which is exactly what Taeyong is thinking.

“It does weaken your immune system,” nods Dr. Lee. His voice intonation stays the same, steady, almost mechanical. “You’re going to have to be especially careful of infections. Keep your house sterilised like a laboratory. Preferably no pets. Avoid food from outside and have a family member take out the trash.”

Taeyong sticks his finger through the hole he made in his sweater, a sinking hopelessness weighing down his limbs. “For how long will I have to be on immunosuppressants?”

Dr. Lee peers at him through those wire-rimmed spectacles, and Taeyong has a niggling feeling he just asked a stupid question. It’s not just Dr. Lee’s headmaster vibes telling him so. “This is a treatment, not a cure,” says Dr. Lee. “There is no cure for granulomatosis with polyangiitis, because we don’t know what causes it. It’s like allergies when we don't know what the patient is allergic to. All one can do is help them suppress the symptoms, you understand?”

“Yes,” says Taeyong glumly.

“You’re going to have to be on immunosuppressants lifelong,” says Dr. Lee. Taeyong hears Baekhyun not so discreetly gasp behind him. “Anyway, the inflammation is only affecting your lungs and sinuses for now, as far as we know, so we’re going to keep it under control.” He scribbles out a prescription for Taeyong, who takes it with stuttering hands. “You’re going to have to schedule checkups every couple of weeks so we can monitor the effects of your medication, see whether we have to up or low the dosages, stuff like that,” adds Dr. Lee.

“Thank you, doctor,” says Taeyong softly.

“Cheer up,” says Dr. Lee. “This would have been life-threatening if it wasn’t detected.”

“I’m glad we figured out what’s going on,” says Taeyong numbly. 

Dr. Lee nods and says, “Come see me again in two weeks’ time.”

~

Taeyong is silent on the ride home. Even Baekhyun, who is generally chirpy and voluble, does not try to engage him in conversation, but he keeps meeting Taeyong’s eyes in the rearview mirror and smiling comfortingly. Surprisingly, Taeyong does not feel too tired to give him tiny smiles in return.

Baekhyun picks Taeyong up like a bride again and Taeyong whines because Baekhyun is practically a stranger but he has spent half the day with him and he knows about Taeyong’s weird disease and the way his body is screwing him over and he’s bride-carrying him and it’s just embarrassing. 

“I’m sorry I’m making you uncomfortable,” says Baekhyun. “I hope you gradually get comfortable with me taking care of you.”

Taeyong’s hands fall off his face. “Why do you want to keep taking care of me?” Why would he do it for a stranger?

“If Mel treats you like family, then you’re family,” grins Baekhyun, and they’re just words, Taeyong is sure he’s just saying them, it definitely doesn’t mean anything- but his chest is alight with an agitated warmth.

Baekhyun lays him down on the couch and says, “It’s going to be okay.”

“Thanks,” mumbles Taeyong, his eyes embarrassingly wet. He is feeling abashed in front of Baekhyun several times today. He is almost glad when Baekhyun takes Mel away, murmuring to her that “You can’t keep coming here, you might make Taeyong sicker,” because he thinks that will be the last he sees of Baekhyun today. Mel blinks feline reproach over Baekhyun’s shoulder at him, but Taeyong doesn’t feel too bad. Even though it was Mel who made sure he ate his meals all these days. He doesn’t know how often he’ll see Mel now, if at all, and he will miss her, but he has been all alone before.

Taeyong guesses he is meant to be alone.

~

But Baekhyun returns. Maybe it has been ten minutes, or half an hour, but Baekhyun opens the door with a bag of groceries thumping against his knees and says, “You should keep your door locked, since you’re not going to be able to defend yourself if a psycho breaks in and I won’t necessarily be there to protect you. Although if he’s built like you, he won’t even have to break in, just wriggle through the cat-flap.”

“Yeah,” says Taeyong, surprised by this way of greeting, “but then I won’t be able to let you in.” 

Baekhyun’s already soft face softens. “That’s why you put in a cat flap, huh.”

Taeyong flushes with embarrassment, he doesn’t know why. “No, I just didn’t want my door all scratched up. I used to be able to open the door for Mel.”

“But now you can’t.” Baekhyun softens even more, as if that’s possible. “Your condition has worsened. I can’t leave you alone.” Taeyong feels warm and sticky and fuzzy all at once, like a melting marshmallow, when Baekhyun cups his face and wordlessly looks at him with sad, droopy eyes. 

“You’re all skin and bones,” says Baekhyun.

“I’ve been eating well, _mom,_ ” Taeyong drawls. Baekhyun just grins, unfazed. Taeyong wants to pinch the grin off Baekhyun’s face. His cheeks are great for pinching. But Taeyong can’t move right now. “Also I can’t wriggle through the cat-flap,” he adds.

“I bet you haven’t tried,” murmurs Baekhyun as he leaves him to go into the kitchen, his socky footsteps almost soundless yet reassuring, a muffled pad like Mel’s movements. There’s rustling, the clink of vessels and the sound of him opening cupboards.

Baekhyun is cooking for him, Taeyong thinks, bewildered. He can’t remember the last time someone cooked for him.

Taeyong can already feel his mouth watering as Baekhyun sets the table. He wriggles, impatient, and sits up, toes touching the floor. Baekhyun sets down the cutlery he’s holding and rushes to him, sweeping him up in his arms before he can even insist that he’ll come to the table by himself, and Taeyong is happy-angry. Baekhyun sets him down in the only chair, and the bowl of food and the cutlery have been placed right in front of Taeyong.

It’s ginseng chicken soup. Taeyong just breathes it in for a moment, the scent of the broth already comforting.

“Can I spoonfeed you?”

Taeyong blinks. “What?”

There is only one chair, so Baekhyun sits on the table, legs dangling, and then he stoops, but Taeyong grabs the spoon before he can and stutters, “I- I can feed myself.”

“Okay,” says Baekhyun gently, but while Taeyong is tasting the broth, he separates the chicken into pieces for him.

“Stop babying me,” says Taeyong, and Baekhyun just grins at his whiny intonation, but Taeyong kind of hates himself right now. Baekhyun is doing so much more for him than simply helping out a neighbour entails, and yet he, Taeyong, is being so bratty about it. 

“I know this is sudden, me just kind of gatecrashing your life, and I wish this could have happened organically- like we just become friends and then I help you when you need it because that’s what friends do- but that’s not how it happened. And I’d like to slowly become friends with you, but you need help _now_.”

Taeyong would just sit there chewing his chicken, but he has already overshot his sulking allowance for the day, so he settles for “Mmm.”

“I’m not asking you to like me back,” Baekhyun says, his voice dipping an octave or so lower. “I can’t ask that of you, obviously. I’m only asking you to let me do things for you. Let me take care of you.”

It’s a good thing Taeyong swallowed his chicken already, or he’d have choked.

“What?”

“I-I know you must be even more uncomfortable, now that you know how I feel.” The tips of Baekhyun’s ears are pink, and he’s staring at the table instead of at Taeyong. “But I’m going to clamp my feelings down, I swear. I’m not going to hold on to anything that makes you uncomfortable, and anyway my feelings aren’t important here, it’s your wellbeing that-”

“I don’t want you to,” says Taeyong.

Baekhyun glances up, and a hint of panic glistens over the inordinate sincerity in his eyes. “You- don’t?” he falters.

“I mean,” Taeyong clarifies, “You can like me. Keep liking me.”

For someone who prattles a lot, Baekhyun is unexpectedly rendered speechless. Taeyong tries not to be smug about it. He is warm through and through, and maybe that’s because of the chicken broth, but maybe it’s because Baekhyun is grinning so giddily, maybe it’s because his cheeks are shiny when they’re all bunched up by his smiles, as though if Taeyong rubbed his cheeks, they’d squeak.

~

Baekhyun can’t stop worrying, from the first moment he lays eyes on Taeyong.

He is like those princes in stories that had poor constitutions and were locked away in towers with all the physicians of the kingdom attending to them, those princes with the delicate beauty of a flower that blooms without any sun. He is a jumble of bones, this neighbour that Mel took a fancy to, but a beautifully arranged jumble of bones. Taeyong’s fragility worries Baekhyun. The exhausted pain on Taeyong’s face worries him sick. Taeyong is princely even when he is slumped on the couch in sweatpants, but he has no entourage of physicians and attendants nursing him. He is all alone, and Baekhyun wants to take care of him, _has_ to take care of him to ease his own nagging anxiety about how Taeyong will manage. 

But what worries Baekhyun most is his own invasiveness, his own intentions. He is plagued by self-awareness. He tells himself that he will not approach Taeyong out of his own selfish motivations; he will not take gross advantage of Taeyong’s desperation. He decides to tell Taeyong how he feels, and how his selfish feelings are separate from his altruistic actions. He doesn’t want to be deceitful.

It can’t be that difficult to be a good person.

“You can like me,” Taeyong tells him. “Keep liking me.” And when Baekhyun recovers his bearings and says they should discuss this more, Taeyong says, “What else is there to discuss? I’m beginning to like you too.” 

His doe eyes glimmer with innocence and… something else, and Baekhyun doesn’t want him to ever stop looking at him that way. So Baekhyun plants a cautious peck on his chin, even though what he really wants is to crash their lips and combust.

~

Taeyong’s body gives out on him again- he began taking his immunosuppressants the day after Baekhyun took him to see Dr. Lee, but found blood in his urine after their hospital visit. So they went to see Dr. Lee again the very next day, instead of the stipulated two weeks later. As it turns out, the granulomatosis with polyangiitis has affected one of Taeyong’s kidneys too. He will need to have the affected kidney removed, and be left with one functioning kidney. They will schedule a surgery but in the meantime, Taeyong has to go for a couple of dialysis sessions every week and take the initially prescribed dosage of immunosuppressants for a couple of weeks to see the effects.

The upside is that Dr. Lee says Mel can visit Taeyong again, as long as Taeyong doesn’t clean her litter box. “Cats are clean creatures,” he says, and Baekhyun tells Taeyong all the way home that they should stick with this doctor, he seems to know his stuff. Taeyong smiles and dozes in the backseat.

That evening Taeyong curls up with Mel on the couch. Mel is not friends with Baekhyun right now because he kept her locked in the guest room until Taeyong’s apartment’s cat flap was boarded over. Baekhyun lets them spend their quiet time together while he furiously scrolls through information about kidney removal surgery on his computer. The next day, he unscrews the board from over the cat flap. Mel doesn’t forgive him just yet, but Taeyong flies into his arms and they whirl around for joy. Taeyong gets dizzy and has to lie down, and Baekhyun juices lemons for him until the nausea subsides, but overlaying everything is a mantle of contentment. 

~

Taeyong feels drowsy and achy and like he cannot move at all. It’s not a new feeling. But he’s all wrapped up in Baekhyun’s muslin blanket, an unbudgeable cocoon, and that is new.

“Can you breathe?” says Baekhyun.

“Feels like being mummified,” says Taeyong, “like I’m already dead.”

“What?!” Baekhyun begins unwrapping him immediately.

“Kidding,” says Taeyong, but Baekhyun doesn’t halt.

“I read somewhere that creating the illusion that you can’t move because of something external can make you forget that you can’t move because of something internal,” Baekhyun explains, propping Taeyong up against a pile of pillows to unravel the cocoon easier.

“Bullshit,” says Taeyong sleepily, giggling when Baekhyun pouts.

~

Taeyong still has symptoms, but experimenting with immunosuppressants is dangerous, so Dr. Lee is making sure he takes it very slow with testing out how the medications affect him. He does see a difference already, though. He is able to go for a walk with Baekhyun every once in a while. He’s been bothering Baekhyun about doing stuff in the kitchen again, but Baekhyun doesn’t let him stand and cook- he scoops him up and sets him on the counter, and Taeyong hovers over the stove sideways, flipping pans and dangling legs.

“You don’t look good in an apron, you have a flat ass,” grouses Baekhyun, grabbing the pan from him and finishing the garnish.

Taeyong knows he’s trying not to let him exert himself, knows he doesn’t really mean it, but he still allows his large eyes to sparkle with unshed tears. Sure enough, to his satisfaction, Baekhyun panics. Apologies and self-deprecation spill from his mouth, along with promises that Taeyong can do whatever makes him happy and Baekhyun will never try to stop him again. Taeyong blinks demurely, hugging Baekhyun in a gesture of forgiveness, trying very hard not to giggle into Baekhyun’s broad chest.

~

After a month, Taeyong’s symptoms are negligible. He cooks regularly now, sometimes only allowing Baekhyun into the kitchen to make cat treats for Mel. Every time he tastes Taeyong’s food, Baekhyun teases him, loudly and dramatically, “You can’t make me fall even more in love with you! Why is the mandu you make so sexy?”

“Stop,” giggles Taeyong, but Baekhyun continues, “If you make everything so tasty it’s gonna work like aphrodisiac,” and Taeyong has to swat at his shoulder until he shuts up.

Baekhyun likes treating him; he knows Taeyong has a sweet tooth longer than a sabertooth. The first time Taeyong actually agrees to let Baekhyun make him something, Baekhyun bakes him a batch of gingerbread men, and Taeyong avows that Baekhyun is a sort of gingerbread man himself- smiley, warm, sweet-smelling.

“What? Ginger-bwead?” says Baekhyun, and Taeyong pinches his muffin cheek.

~

Baekhyun takes a shower every evening, after which is their kisses-and-cuddles time. Baekhyun used to be pretty cautious about kissing him before, often to Taeyong’s impatience, because the spontaneity of a kiss often factored into the thrill of it. But now that kisses-and-cuddles has become a routine, Taeyong isn’t complaining.

“How was it?” says Baekhyun, scooting to make place for Taeyong on the bed. 

Taeyong crawls into his lap, breathing in the strawberry scent of his shampoo. Taeyong knows what he’s asking about: the dialysis session.

“It was quiet,” says Taeyong. “I’m still surprised it doesn’t hurt.”

Baekhyun chuckles, nuzzling into his neck. Taeyong nearly jumps at his warm breath pooling in his clavicles. “Not everything in the hospital is going to hurt you, baby. If they hurt you I’ll whoop their asses to Cambodia.”

“You’re so random,” mumbles Taeyong, grinning around his own words. “All the long term dialysis patients are friends and I’m kind of the odd one out. They’re like sessionmates, they’ve had a shared weekly dialysis schedule for years, so I get it.”

Baekhyun ‘hmphs’ into his neck. There’s the pad of paws, and then Mel is wriggling between their tangled limbs, intent on joining the cuddle party. Baekhyun and Taeyong each pick one of Mel’s ears to pet.

“You and Mel can just live here, can’t you?” says Taeyong, wheedling and wistful.

Baekhyun has to gently remind him, between what he calls ‘sideburn kisses’ from jaw to hairline, of the time they had to separate for a few days because Baekhyun had a cold and Taeyong was already on immunosuppressants. Taeyong had begged to be held, tears splashing splotches on the carpeting around his feet. Baekhyun had come back with mask and gloves and held just Taeyong’s hand over the threshold.

“Why won’t you cross the threshold?” Taeyong whined. “I want a hug.”

“I gotta run home like lightning if I feel a sneeze coming,” said Baekhyun.

“You’re wearing a mask,” mewled Taeyong.

“...If I sneeze the mask might explode,” said Baekhyun, and Taeyong hiccuped a laugh despite telling himself he wouldn’t let Baekhyun cheer him up any way other than giving him what he wanted: a hug. They didn’t hug, though. Not that time.

“I should hold on to my apartment in case we ever have to separate again,” says Baekhyun, pecking Taeyong on the nose to mollify him. 

Taeyong is quiet. Mel has sickened of their petting and is rubbing her back on the headboard with loud purrs.

“Yongie?”

Taeyong responds, “You’re right.” There’s his surgery coming up, too, a fortnight away. Dr. Lee has told him time and again that they’ve assigned him a top notch nephrologist and that it’s not a dangerous surgery anyway, nor is it painful in the recovery period after. However, he still can’t be sure what it’s going to be like for him afterwards. 

Taeyong is still nervous. How can he not be? But Baekhyun is there to give him kisses-and-cuddles every night, and petting Mel is therapeutic, even if she loses patience with it after a while. Taeyong is not alone. Taeyong is loved.

So he’s going to be okay. He’s going to be happy, even. He already is.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i have a [twitter](https://twitter.com/trashsshi). talk to me there? ♡


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